A Single Flame, A Single Being
by Ocean's Tale
Summary: What if Axel's past and how he came to be a Nobody is different than it was first thought to be? What if a certain Flame Alchemist was directly involved somehow? KH/FMA oneshot. First time writing these characters, so slightly OOC.


A fine mist of rain covered Central, clinging in small crystal like beads of moisture to plant and animal life, to buildings, cars, and all manner of people as they trudged through the dim evening light. Some few had the luxury to not have to walk in such gloomy weather, and instead found themselves being shepherded to where they were needed. One such man was occupying himself during this ride by staring out of the window closest to him with bottomless black eyes, back straight and hands resting on his legs. He was dressed in a rich blue military uniform and was something of a war hero if the decorations placed on the left breast of his uniform were anything to go by, straight ebony locks of hair falling into his eyes.

Sitting next to him in the vehicle was a woman dressed in similar uniform, blonde hair swept away from her eyes as the clear blue orbs looked forward unblinkingly. This woman wore a uniform similar to the mans, though hers was slightly less decorated. "Sir,"

The man looked away from the window and over at her. "Yes, Hawkeye?"

"Good luck with your mission."

Mustang smiled a little, but did not reply.

They rode in silence for many long minutes after the brief exchange, and though Mustang glanced away from his wind and over at Hawkeye several times neither spoke again. Before long their car had reached Central Headquarters, and upon arrival the two stepped from the vehicle. The two stood before the Headquarter gates quietly for a while, the light rain falling down on them and dusting their hair with drops of water. Eventually, Mustang strode forward towards the large building ahead of them, leaving Riza to her own devices. Foot steps could be heard behind him and the alchemist stopped before the main door, one foot still on the last step of the stairs. "Hawkeye..."

She waited until she had scaled the stairs and stood next to him to answer. "Yes, sir?"

"I hope your mission goes well."

The sharpshooter replied with merely a blink. "Thank you, sir." with that she strode past him and through the doors.

Mustang sighed. He should follow suite, or else he would be late for his own briefing. Even so, he had a feeling that it was not going to end well and was trying to put it off as long as he dared to. Still, there was little time left until the briefing and there was still a whole building to walk through. With another sigh Roy started moving again, pushing through the doors and walking down the nearly empty halls, his footsteps echoing slightly with each step.

After a time Mustang stood waiting outside of a door at the end of one of many halls. This door looked like all the others, but beyond it was a person far above Mustang's own rank. He raised a clenched hand, knocking. "Come in." came a voice from the other side.

Gripping the door handle, he turned and pushed. Stepping through the door and closing it behind him, Mustang stood straight. "You wanted to see me, Fuhrer?"

Across from him, standing straight and facing the large window on the room's far side, was Fuhrer King Bradley, dressed as always in his military uniform and with a sheathed saber at his side. "I did, yes. Do you know why I had you summoned?"

"I was told something about a mission, but I wasn't informed of any specifics." Mustang explained.

Bradley nodded, "There are some odd creatures that have been spotted in a canyon west of Central." The Fuhrer's back was still facing him, which made it impossible to glean any information by reading his facial expressions.

"Odd creatures?" Mustang's brow furrowed slightly. "Could it just be more chimera?"

"Yes, it could be just that." The Fuhrer turned to look at the Flame Alchemist. "But we can't say that for certain. Your mission is to go out there and asses the situation, possibly bringing back one of these creatures for study if you can."

Mustang waited to see if Bradley would say anything else before speaking up again. "Will anyone be accompanying me, sir?"

"No. This is a solo mission, though the Elric boy may be sent after you for your progress report at sometime. Dismissed."

Roy Mustang saluted sharply before turning and exiting the room, the door closing with a soft click as the alchemist shut it. Unlike other times in the past, Riza was not waiting for him as the sharpshooter had her own assignment briefing to attend too. This fact made Roy feel a little down, but he quickly shook off the feeling and tromped his way through the building. He had packing and arrangements to make before he left, not to mention a few reports write and documents that needed his signature still, and his departure would be arriving only too soon with all that was needed to be done.

~*~*~

By the time that dawn arrived once more to greet the world with her gentle rays, the Flame Alchemist was already aboard a train west bound for the small town located just outside of the canyon where these odd creatures- most likely just escaped chimera- had been spotted. As the train steadily rolled on, Roy flipped through a few reports that were sadly lacking in details. The reports had been sent to them from the townsfolk when they had requested aid. Apparently, they had already lost a few people to these creatures, though there was no blood or body left over from those taken. While a few points of the reports were certainly intriguing, the rest of the reports could hardly be called such a thing. Mustang had lost total interest in the reports by the time he set aside the last one. "Really," he said aloud to no one in particular, "I think this people are just spook over their own shadows and a few people ran away. 'Beings are total black with yellow or white eyes and will rise from the ground or even a persons' shadow. In addition they are quite numerous and no weapon seems to harm them.'" Roy recalled from on of the reports.

The alchemist refrained from rolling his eyes. "That sounds utterly impossible. Probably just a few scared hunters."

Before he had time to further speculate on just how sane the townsfolk were, his train approached the station, slowing down as it drew nearer until it finally stopped before the platform. Gathering the few things he had brought with him and stowing the reports safely away, Mustang took his sweet time departing from the train. When he did finally step down onto the platform, Roy realized that he was the only one there. Not only that, but on further inspection – aka, staring at train windows – he had been the only one aboard the train as well. A little more unsettled by this than he should have been, Mustang squared his shoulders and walked out of the station and out onto the road beyond it.

Not that there was really much to see there. When this place had been labeled as a small town, someone had definitely been giving them too much credit. This town, called such as it was, was honestly little more than a medium sized village, and that was only if you stretched the term 'medium' a bit. A single, broad road stretched through the town, ending in front of the train station. On either side of the road there stood decently sized shops and houses, and that was it. Besides those, there was nothing else to the town, save a long-dry fountain by one building. To top it all off, there didn't appear to be anything green around for miles- in fact, his uniform seemed to be the single most colorful thing in the place. It wasn't that it was a desert, but all of the grass of what must have once been a beautiful grassland was dead.

Mustang stood there for a bit, almost stunned at the sight that had greeted him and drawing more than a few stares from the locals. Before be had fully snapped out of it he was approached by an older man who was looking both frantic and ecstatic at the same time. "Thank goodness! You must be the help from the military I sent for!"

This greeting snapped Mustang out of it. "Yes, I am. Colonel Roy Mustang," he offered a hand in greeting.

"Joe Bob," he shook hands, then he caught the faint smile about the alchemist's face and scowled. "Yes, my parents believed that they were being very _witty_ when they named me Joe, I'm sure."

"All joking aside," Mustang began. "Where are these... '_odd creatures_' you reported to the Military? I read the reports on my way here so I have a rough idea on what to expect, you neglected to include where they were found."

Joe rung his hands, "That's just the problem! _You_ don't find _them_, _they_ find _you_!"

Mustang stared at the man, one eyebrow raised.

After a while, Joe sighed, realizing that there was no way he was going to convince one such as Mustang from investigating this. "... The canyon. They are most often seen down in the canyon. Go straight out of town and follow the road." he eyed Mustang warily, "But if you don't come back, do _not_ expect my town to take the blame for it!"

"It won't." Mustang replied, patting the elder man on his shoulder as he passed by. He just happened to fail to mention the fact that he considered these creatures to be completely in their heads.

Walking casually down the road, Mustang blinked in surprise when after on a few minutes upon leaving the town boundaries he had already reached this canyon Joe Bob had spoken of. While it wasn't anywhere near as deep as some of the canyons he had seen, it was still deep enough that a fall from the top would be fatal. By about the time he had reached the center of the canyon, it's steep, sandy walls high above his head, Mustang was thoroughly convinced that they had made this whole thing up. There wasn't so much as an _ant_ in that canyon, let alone completely black beings that rose out of peoples' shadows!

The alchemist turned around with a slightly annoyed expression on his face, only to be faced with the very thing he had been sent out here to search for.

Before him was a being about the size of a teenager. It stood on two legs and though it's posture was not bent over, it was certainly bowed a bit. Its hands seemed to end in claws rather than fingers, and it had two long antenna on its head that were swept back behind it as if from a wind, lightening like in appearance after a certain point. Glowing yellow eyes stared at Mustang as the totally black being twitched and jerked as it stood there, facing the alchemist.

Mustang blinked. Out of all of the options, he couldn't say that he had been expecting this. It looked... almost human. Even to one such as himself it was unnerving at the least. If this was what had been plaguing the townsfolk, he could certainly see why they were so spooked about the whole thing. As he took a step forward to approach the being, one gloved hand at the ready should something happen, the flat images of three more slid from the shadow of the first and rose to stand next to it, becoming full and more than just an image. One or two of them crouched over, clawed hands resting palm down on the stone. The pose gave them a far more animal-like appearance, enough so that while looking identical to their fellows they could have been different creatures entirely.

In surprise Roy took several steps back, his hand raised and fingers poised to snap. Four sets of glow yellow eyes fixed themselves on him, and as if from an unheard order they moved forward towards him as one.

Two of them jumped through the air at him, claws bared, and the Flame Alchemist stayed true to this title, producing a flame in the air before him in order to defend himself. It would have worked beautifully too, had they not ignored the fire like it wasn't there as they passed through it. Their attack just barely missed him as Roy dodged in the nick of time, but he was unsettled.

Creating another flame, he directed this one toward the two on the ground. Though they darted around the flame and skirted near the edges of the light it produced, they otherwise didn't seem to be even worried about the fire. Even when Roy made a flame directly on top of one of the beings, it didn't so much at blink at the burning element that sat on its head.

Another one darted forward, and immediately after Roy had dodged the attack a second one appeared in the air right in front of him. Before he had time to dodge out of the way of this attack, a fist connected with his stomach and a claw just barely missed his face, nicking his lip as it passed.

Staggering backwards, Roy wiped a trickle of blood from his lip with a finger, the crimson liquid staining the white alchemical cloth of his glove. _This isn't good. My attacks are doing nothing to them, and it doesn't look like I have a way to retreat._

A brief glance around himself and at his situation was all it took to bring that knowledge to light. These twitching black creatures were now swarming over the walls and circling around behind Mustang to trap him in the center, though oddly none except the original four were attacking him. More like they were simply making sure that he was unable to escape them. One of the four creatures got a little too interested and darted towards him. Roy retaliated by snapping his fingers to create that alchemic spark which soon grew into the flame that his title stemmed from, the action totally instinctive. Immediately he swore- the flames did nothing to these opponents, obviously.

It did do one thing this time, however. As the flame grew brightly, the adventurous creature slinked back to the other three, eying the fire warily. Before long the flame would die however, and Mustang would once again have nothing between himself and these dangerous creatures. Creatures that were almost like the shadows themselves, judging from the way they had slid into the room and rose from the floor.

Several more times the four creatures slinked forward to attack him once the flame had died, and several more times Roy had snapped his fingers and called forth that fire, the light causing his attackers to back away from its rays and twitch in the shadows once more, the light that granted him a precious few more minutes for his life. After a time, however, the Flame Alchemist was feeling the drain from creating to many flames in so short a time and knew that this odd dance for his life was over.

The shadowy attackers slowly crept towards their prey as their black, almost smokey bodies twitched and jumped in the faint light of his last flame, their shining white eyes fixed on the Flame Alchemist. One of them leapt at Roy Mustang, grabbing one arm and weighing it down. In a vain attempt to get the mysterious attacker to loosen its grip, Roy snapped his fingers to create a flame despite his weariness. The fire never appeared, and his attempt to create one only allowed the other shadows the opportunity they needed to attack him as well. More climbed up from black, seemingly bottomless holes that had appeared in the ground, and these new shadows joined into the fray. _What are these things?!_ Roy thought, almost frantic.

The combined weight of all of them caused Mustang to stagger, then to fall to his knees. More and more of the shadows climbed from those same holes to join the fight- one that Mustang was loosing. Bad. They were everywhere and for one reason or another, the Alchemist felt his grip on consciousness slip before finally failing all together. Shortly before his vision had faded completely, two pairs of footsteps drifted to his ears, one of them the clanging noise of metal against stone, and Roy saw Edward and Alphonse Elric come to a sudden halt on the other side of the sea of shadow creatures. There was a loud shout, possibly from one of the brothers, possibly from himself, then he fell forward and saw no more.

A bright object parted ways from the fallen alchemist, revealing itself to be a heart that was slowly spiraling upwards as it spun. A brief flash of light, and the heart shrunk out of existence. Darting after the heart was a blur of black, purple and red that vanished with a burst of sparks.

Movement came from underneath the mass of shadow creatures and they scattered like shadows when held to a light. No longer burdened by the black beings a figure stood, one that was certainly _not_ Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist.

No, this person was thinner and taller than Roy. Plus last someone checked, Mustang didn't have bright green eyes and fiery red hair that fell in spikes down in neck and to his shoulders. This man also wore a long black coat that was zipped in the front and equally black boots. He glanced about the rocky area around them a bit, eyes passing over Edward and Alphonse, before nonchalantly setting a few of the stronger Neoshadow Heartless on fire. The man raised a slim hand and dusted off one shoulder before turning and making to leave. "Wait!" came a partly hesitant voice from behind him. Edward's voice.

"Why should I?" He replied in an amused tone of voice, one foot hovering just above the ground, almost touching the stone.

"Mustang had been standing right there before he got over run with those shadow things!" Ed called, not quite shouting yet. "And then you went and stood up right where he had been! Where did Mustang go?!"

"How could I know, kid? I've only just got here."

Edward paused before speaking again. "Rr, that's impossible! You just... stood up from no where after those... things attacked Mustang. What'd you do to him?!" the young State Alchemist demanded.

"Please, sir." Al spoke up, taking a step forward, "If you don't know where Mustang is, could you at least tell us who you are?"

The redhead looked over his shoulder at the older teen, his spiky hair being slightly flattened against his shoulder at the movement. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

"Fine then, _Axel_. What have you done with Mustang?! Where the _hell_ is he?!"

"_Brother_, please!"

Axel smirked, green eyes sparkling mischievously. "Calm down, short stuff. I don't know who this 'Mustang' pal of yours is, but he sure ain't here."

"You're lying! And don't call me SMALL!" Edward roared, charging at the Nobody only to be caught by Alphonse before he got very far.

"Brother, wait a moment." The armor 'looked' over at Axel. "Axel, please. I don't know who you are or why you're here, but it's important that you tell us where Mustang went. Or is if you happen to know."

He shrugged, the action sending a ripple of movement through his crimson spikes. "I don't know any 'Mustang-" Axel stopped mid sentence, an odd look washing over his face. Smirking again, Axel shook his head with a lighthearted laugh and continued walking.

"Jerk!" Ed shouted after the Nobody, struggling against the hold that Al had him in. "I know that you know something! You just won't say!"

Axel chuckled. "Kid, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. I know how you are."

This comment caused Edward to stop, but only for a moment. "Try me!" he hollered.

"Colonel Roy Mustang is closer than you think, Edward."

A swirling, endless black portal appeared behind the Nobody as Axel instinctively opened a Corridor of Darkness, a pathway that stretched clear through the darkness between worlds. Where it led, he did not yet know but he was itching to find out. Axel stepped back into the corridor, giving the two Elric brothers a mock salute before being swallowed up by the darkness. For what felt like an eternity the Nobody walked through the Corridor, black and purple swirling around the edges of the pathway and silvery shapes gathering at the edges of his vision, watching as Axel walked on.

Before long the shapes circled around him, blocking the way so he could go no direction but forward, on through the Corridor and the darkness. The broad path seemed to stretch on forever, but after a time the end was in sight, making itself known by being extremely tall. Axel stepped through the portal and was a little surprised to see another person standing several meters away from it, hands clasped behind his back. He wore the same sort of clothing as Axel, though his hair was long and white and his skin deeply tanned. As Axel stepped through the portal accompanied by several of the silver figures, the man smiled. "A new Nobody, I see."

'Nobody'... Axel decided that the name suited him nicely. "What are those things?" He questioned, gesturing towards one of the many silver things that had gone over to this man, standing behind him.

"These are Dusk, a lesser form of Nobody and far below your power. You appear to have called them to you during you arrival here, a sign that you are already learning your powers."

Unsure how to respond to this, Axel turned to a different topic. "What's your name? What are you?"

"My name you will learn in time, when it is sure that your loyalties lie in myself alone. For now you may call me Superior. I am a Nobody. Like these Dusk, like yourself, I am one born when Darkness takes a strong enough heart."

"Superior?"

The other Nobody nodded. "Yes. I am the Superior of Organization XIII, an organization of some of the most powerful Nobodies currently in nonexistence." Superior turned silver eyes on Axel. "One that you are already a part of." he nodded at the black clothing.

Axel didn't reply to this, rather wary on what could be said to such an unpredictable man.

Superior nodded to himself at the silence with which he had been replied. It would take time for this new Nobody to become accustomed to his new nonlife and powers. There would be time for other things later. "Your name?"

"Axel." There was a vocal smirk obvious in his voice.

"Your power?"

"Fire." A brightly burning flame was summoned to prove this point.

Superior nodded to himself once again, obviously satisfied with this information. "You shall command the Assassin Nobodies. These are your weapons." A small keychain with two miniature chakrams attached to it was tossed to Axel."Your title shall be Flurry of Dancing Flames. Welcome to the Organization XIII, Number Eight."


End file.
